Robert Barr never left his cell while directing an attempt to steal £2 million in cryptocurrency. While serving a sentence at HMP Edinburgh for fraud and possession of smuggled phones, the 29-year-old used an illicit mobile handset to steer two accomplices toward a victim's home. That plot has now added eight years to his time behind bars, after he pleaded guilty at a Glasgow court.

Eight years for the man who ran the operation from prison

Barr, 29, was sentenced at the High Court in Glasgow after pleading guilty, alongside Sean Favier, 26, and Iain Doyle, 37, to involvement in serious organized crime, a charge aimed at those who direct or take part in organized criminal activity. Favier received four years in prison, while Doyle was handed five. The sentencing details were set out in a statement from Scotland's Judicial Office.

Prosecutors identified Barr as the head of the operation. Lord Cubie, the presiding judge, read out the prosecution's description of a man able "to orchestrate a level of criminality rarely seen within mainstream investigations." The plot, the judge said, "married 21st century computer sophistication with old fashioned housebreaking."

Central to the scheme was a phone that should never have been inside the prison. When Barr had access to it, he was already serving a 21-month term, part of it for possessing illicit mobiles — the same category of contraband that gave him the channel to direct a fresh operation from behind bars.

Why the plan depended on AnyDesk

Barr's instructions called for Favier and Doyle to get inside the victims' home and pressure the homeowner into installing AnyDesk, a program that allows one person to control another computer from anywhere. AnyDesk is a mainstream remote-desktop tool normally used for remote technical support, but in this plot it was to act as the bridge between the victims' machine and Barr's cell.

His plan was to use the software to paste in a receiving wallet address and transfer the victims' crypto holdings into accounts under his control.

Failed attempts to reach the victims

One attempt against the victims, a couple, took place on April 17, 2024. Their doorbell rang at around 11:30 pm while both were at home. The husband looked out, saw two men in dark clothing with their hoods up, and told his wife not to open the door; he did not know them and was not expecting anyone.

The men instead spoke through the video doorbell. One of them stared into the lens and asked whether there was a camera in front of him. The pair then covered their faces once they believed they were being recorded. They failed to gain entry to the apartment, and no theft was recorded that day.

It was the second attempt on the property. In January of the same year, thieves raided the same home, where the target remained a cofounder of a crypto startup. They made off with a hardware wallet but could not open it without the PIN, leaving the funds on the device inaccessible to them. Hardware wallets are built so that the keys that move funds stay offline on the device itself, and without the PIN there is no way to approve a transfer — the safeguard that left the January raiders holding a device they could not use.

How the scheme unraveled

The device that enabled the plot ultimately led authorities to those behind it. Police seized Barr's phone on June 25, 2024. On it, investigators found evidence of his role in organizing the operation and providing technical support to associates carrying out crypto thefts, including his instructions to Favier and Doyle.

The case comes amid a broader rise in physical attacks on cryptocurrency holders in the UK. In August, a jury convicted five men after they kidnapped and tortured two men said to be crypto millionaires for 52 hours. In October, a crypto trader lost $800,000 in a home-invasion robbery. The common thread across these cases is not a breach of the blockchain itself but physical pressure applied to people, aimed at forcing them to surrender access to their holdings — which is why a video doorbell, a hardware wallet's PIN, and a single seized phone each became decisive in this one.